GENEVA: UN-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi on Thursday demanded the release of leading Syrian women’s rights campaigner Razan Zeitouneh and three fellow activists, abducted last week by unknown kidnappers.

“We have all got to demand that they be released,” Brahimi told activists from Syria and other countries as well as diplomats at a meeting at the UN’s Geneva offices.

“Zeitouneh should have been here today, and I hope that she will be here on the 12th of January,” he added, referring to a gathering of Syrian women campaigners planned ahead of long-awaited peace talks between the government and rebels starting in Switzerland on Jan 22.

Zeitouneh was among the 2011 winners of the European Parliament’s top human rights prize for their role in the Arab Spring.—AFP